


Flower bed

by ToxicPineapple



Series: Femslash February 2021 [4]
Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Conversations, F/F, Femslash February, First Meeting, Flirting, Fluff, Introspection, Mahiru rambles, Neighbours, Peko thinks it's cute and she's right, Romance, Sunrises, Watching the Sunrise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29076747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: “Ah, I see!” Koizumi nods. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to seem judgemental, I figured it was something like that, or maybe step siblings, or maybe your parents just look wildly different… I guess I didn’t think too much about it,” she adds, to herself, in a bit of an undertone. “I’ve just been noticing you around, you know, and I don’t want to be nosy, but I’ve been curious.”Peko can’t help smiling again, any tension easing out of her shoulders as Koizumi rambles. “You’ve been noticing me around?”“Well,” Koizumi huffs, a slight tint touching her freckled cheeks, and turns her head away. “When you put it like that, I sound like a total creep! It’s just, y’know,” she gestures with her camera, “you’re… sort of beautiful, so.”---Peko watches the sunrise and meets her new neighbour.---Femslash February day four: Flower
Relationships: Koizumi Mahiru/Pekoyama Peko
Series: Femslash February 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137446
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Flower bed

**Author's Note:**

> written for day four of femslash february! the prompt i used was "flower" and you can find a complete list in the series description

Peko’s apartment has a balcony overlooking the main road that wraps around the apartment complex. She spends a lot of time outside in the early hours of the morning, before Fuyuhiko and Natsumi are awake, breathing in the sunrise and watching the city start to wake up. She wraps herself in her old, scratchy wool blanket to protect from the morning chill and admires the colours that the sky turns as the sun starts to creep its way over the horizon, all the clouds being dusted with pale oranges and cotton candy pinks, and thinks about how lucky she is to be here, with the people that she loves most in the world, waiting for them to wake up so they can all make breakfast.

Sometimes she’ll take out a mug of something warm out here, like coffee or tea, and sip it while she watches the sky gain colour. This morning, though, Peko’s hands are empty, resting lightly on her knees, the ends of the blanket brushing against her knuckles. Her fingers are tinted pink with how chilly it is out here-- it’s only September but already the air is starting to become more brisk, the trees all brushed with oranges and reds and yellows as the season changes-- but she pays them no mind, nor does she particularly care about how numb her ears feel, tingling on the side of the head.

It’s nice to watch the colour return to everything. Night time feels so long, and so dark, even in the summer when the sun doesn’t set until late in the evenings, when Peko is already tired and ready to curl up by the window with a book. Peko doesn’t  _ mind  _ the darkness, or anything, but too many of her enemies have come at her in the dark, too many of her nightmares have felt too real under the cover of nighttime, so if Peko could choose, daylight or moonlight, she’d choose the former every time. There’s something comforting about the sun, and its golden hue, and maybe it’s the association she has with the colour gold, that reminds her of her family, of her adopted brother and sister still asleep inside her apartment, but something about it makes her feel safe.

Yawning, Peko lifts one of her cold hands to her mouth and muffles the sound, looking over to her left. Peko’s hardly met any of her neighbours, least of all the ones who live on her left, because they only just moved in about a month ago, but over the course of the past several weeks, Peko has been monitoring their process of building a small garden on their balcony. There are all kinds of bright and colourful flowers out in pots, curling around the hand railings and giving that side of the apartment complex what feels to Peko like a burst of colour. It’ll be sad when wintertime comes and most of those flowers are no longer blooming, but there’s something about that, too, about the transition from winter to spring, when all the flowers come out again, that makes Peko feel alive and at home and safe.

After a while, Peko turns her gaze back to the sky, but she’s only watching the clouds for a moment longer before she hears the balcony door creak open on her left. She turns her head again, one of her braids falling off her shoulder as she does, and watches as a woman about Peko’s age with a head of short, vivid red hair steps out onto her balcony. She’s wrapped in a blanket of her own, silver, and a lot softer looking than Peko’s, and clutching a bulky black camera in her hands as she shivers in the morning air, her breath coming out in visible puffs.

This must be the woman who’s been planting all those flowers, Peko realises. It’s hard to see detail from this distance, but Peko thinks she can see a spattering of freckles across the woman’s nose and exposed forearms. It reminds her of Fuyuhiko and Natsumi, a bit, except that this woman’s freckles are darker and more concentrated than the pale freckles that line the faces of her brother and sister, and something about the sight of them, while familiar, makes Peko’s heart skip a beat.

It occurs to Peko that thinking about a stranger’s freckles while  _ staring  _ at her from the balcony over in the early hours of the morning is probably more than a little weird, so she turns her head to look back out at the sky.

Once again, though, before Peko can really settle back in, a voice calls from her left, “Oh, hey! Good morning, sorry, I didn’t see you at first.” The woman’s voice is honey sweet, with just a hint of a southern accent, and Peko feels a smile threatening to cross her expression as she turns her head another time, reaching up to adjust her glasses.

“Good morning,” Peko says, after a moment. The woman has come over to the edge of her balcony closest to Peko, now, so Peko can see her green grey eyes glimmering in the hints of sunlight that are beginning to shine down from the heavens. She’s insanely pretty and it is  _ insanely  _ distracting. “It’s… alright, I wasn’t expecting anything.”

“Well, maybe you should’ve been!” huffs the woman. “We’re neighbours, right?” She smiles. “I’m Koizumi Mahiru, I moved in about a month ago. I’ve seen you and your roommates around, but I haven’t had a chance to pop in and say high yet. Been busy with moving in and work, and all.” She talks a lot. But her voice is smooth and water clear and Peko finds that she doesn’t mind that, not one bit. “I actually came out for that reason, y’know? I’m taking pictures of the sunset from different parts of the city for an issue in the magazine I work for on air pollution, and I figured I’d start at my own apartment, since I live in such a convenient spot. I wasn’t expecting it to be so cold, though,” she chuckles, rubbing one of her arms.

“It’ll get warmer soon,” Peko replies. She glances at the sky and then at Koizumi again, taking in the disgruntled smile on her face. It’s cute. “I’m… Pekoyama Peko, I live here with my brother and sister.”

Koizumi pauses for a moment. “Oh, you’re related?”

“Adopted, yes,” Peko’s voice takes on a slight edge. It’s not that she blames people for not guessing that she and Fuyuhiko and Natsumi are siblings at first glance, but she sort of wishes she could avoid having to explain it so often. She doesn’t really like the reminder.

“Ah, I see!” Koizumi nods. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to seem judgemental, I figured it was something like that, or maybe step siblings, or maybe your parents just look wildly different… I guess I didn’t think  _ too  _ much about it,” she adds, to herself, in a bit of an undertone. “I’ve just been noticing you around, you know, and I don’t want to be  _ nosy,  _ but I’ve been curious.”

Peko can’t help smiling again, any tension easing out of her shoulders as Koizumi rambles. “You’ve been noticing me around?”

“Well,” Koizumi huffs, a slight tint touching her freckled cheeks, and turns her head away. “When you put it like  _ that,  _ I sound like a total creep! It’s just, y’know,” she gestures with her camera, “you’re… sort of beautiful, so.”

Something in Peko warms, at that, and she can feel heat creeping up her neck in that awful, splotchy way that it does, and then she has to turn her head away, coughing into her shoulder.

Alarmed, Koizumi asks, “Sorry, was that too much? I know I just met you, I just--”

“It’s alright,” Peko rasps, before she takes a moment to recover. “I-- it’s alright,” she exhales, lifting a hand to cover her mouth. Koizumi really is blunt, but it’s not a bad thing. “I… think the same of you, actually. I was watching you before you noticed that I was out here.”

“Oh!” Koizumi grins, and Peko wonders for a moment if that was the wrong thing to say, and then Koizumi lets go of her camera to let it hang around her neck and reaches over to one of her flowerbeds, plucking a bright red flower from a pot and leaning over the railing to hold it out to Peko. Realising what she’s meant to do, Peko stands herself up and walks over to the edge of her own balcony, reaching out her arm to accept the flower. Koizumi’s fingers are warm when they brush against Peko’s during the transfer.

The flower is small, and fragile in the palm of Peko’s hand. She thinks maybe she’ll press it.

“I’ll come over after I eat and give you my number along with that later, alright?” Koizumi is beaming. “I bet we both keep pretty busy, but I’m sure we can find some way to hang out, seeing as we’re neighbours, and all.” Her expression softens. “If you want that, I mean.”

“I do,” Peko says. Her voice is quiet, so she clears her throat and says, more strongly, “I do want that.”

She does. She wants it very much, actually. She looks up at Koizumi for a moment, and then at her flowers. Peko has wanted it since she saw the first pot out on Koizumi’s porch, the first splash of colour in their grey, grey apartment complex.

“I would like that very much,” Peko smiles, and lifts her gaze to meet Koizumi’s grey eyes.

“Good! Good, okay,” Koizumi nods. “Ah, drat, I missed the sunrise,” she frowns, looking up at the sky. “I’ll have to come out again tomorrow.” Her eyes dart to Peko. “Is this a routine of yours, sitting out here every morning?”

Peko hums an affirmation. “It is.”

“Would you mind some company, then?” Koizumi’s lips curl, in what Peko thinks is a hopeful smile.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Peko shakes her head, and watches Koizumi’s smile broaden. It’s more radiant, Peko thinks, than the sunrise itself. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> we're gonna ignore the sainaga fic i wrote once that's pretty much the same premise as this


End file.
